"The Forbidden Question"

"The Forbidden Question"

by Todd Hayen

"My personal experiences seem to lag a bit behind the general population. I have not, until recently, noticed too many people succumbing to strange cancers. Now, quite a few have come up in my personal life, as well as in my professional life (experiences of my psychotherapy patients).

We have, of course, heard for years that one of the fallouts from the irresponsible release of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was the possibility of increased cases of all sorts of cancers. Reports from doctors to support this reality have increased over the years, and of course, our personal experiences with friends and family, and news reports of people dying of cancer in mysterious ways (too young, death too quickly, rare cancers) have corroborated the doctors’ concerns.

Proponents of this view argue that the vaccines, introduced globally in late 2020, have triggered an unprecedented increase in cancer diagnoses, particularly among younger individuals, with cancers presenting as unusually aggressive and resistant to treatment. They point to anecdotal reports from clinicians and pathologists who claim to have observed a rise in rare and rapidly progressing cancers, such as cholangiocarcinoma, lymphomas, and triple-negative breast cancer, since the vaccine rollout.

For instance, Dr. William Makis, a Canadian oncologist, has publicly stated that he and colleagues have seen an “explosion” of such cases, particularly in vaccinated individuals, describing cancers that progress so rapidly that patients often die within weeks of diagnosis. Similarly, Dr. Angus Dalgleish, an oncologist in the UK, has expressed concerns about the resurgence of cancers in previously stable patients following booster doses, suggesting a potential immune system disruption caused by the vaccines. These are just a few examples among what I would expect to be many.

The proposed mechanisms linking mRNA vaccines to “turbo cancers” often center on the spike protein produced by the vaccine or the presence of trace contaminants like Simian Virus 40 (SV40) DNA fragments. Some argue that the spike protein may induce chronic inflammation or impair immune surveillance, potentially reactivating latent oncogenic viruses like Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) or human papillomavirus (HPV), which are known to contribute to certain cancers.

Others, including Dr Ryan Cole, a pathologist, have suggested that the mRNA vaccines could alter bone marrow function, leading to cancers that are unresponsive to conventional therapies. A Japanese study published in 2024 reported increased age-adjusted mortality rates for certain cancers, including ovarian, leukemia, prostate, and lip/oral/pharyngeal cancers. The study was carried out in 2022 (and published two years later), coinciding with widespread third-dose mRNA vaccination.

The study noted a 9.5% excess mortality in the 75-79 age group and suggested that the spike protein or lipid nanoparticles might promote coagulation or immune suppression, potentially exacerbating cancer progression.

These claims are supported by case reports and small studies cited by vaccine skeptics. For example, a Belgian study in Frontiers in Oncology described a mouse developing malignant lymphoma after receiving a high dose of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, though the authors cautioned that causality was not established.

Another case involved a 66-year-old man diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma shortly after a Pfizer booster, with similar reports of lymphomas emerging post-vaccination. Dr. Kashyap Patel, a community oncologist in South Carolina, reported seeing seven cases of cholangiocarcinoma in a single year, a rare cancer typically affecting older individuals, now appearing in patients 20-30 years younger.

These clinicians argue that the time-based association between vaccination and cancer diagnoses, combined with the aggressive nature of these cases, warrants further investigation. They express concern that the lack of long-term clinical trials on mRNA vaccines leaves open the possibility of unforeseen oncogenic effects, particularly as global systems like VAERS have logged reports of cancer-related adverse events, though these are unverified and not indicative of causation.

Duh. Any one of us, with our “common sense” observation, could have told them that years ago. Science never “assumes the obvious” which does make sense from an objective point of view. But the obvious should always generate scientific curiosity and subsequent scientific investigation. Of course, if the authority of the government is controlling the science, this obviously does not happen.

So what is the obvious? Well, even my wife, with a clear “sheep persuasion” notices an increase in cancer deaths, particularly the strange ones, like its occurrence in people way too young to be dealing with a particular form of cancer, and the “turbo-quality” to the disease (dead within a few months) or the rarity of the cancer in question.

I have done extensive statistical research on this issue with my pal Super Grok (my AI friend and companion (you know I am being flippant) - if you want to see my research I would be happy to share it with you) and I have discovered the average person has in their family and friend group somewhere around 250 people (this varies depending on whatever statistical system you are working with, some say as little as 100, some say as many as 800 constitute the typical “family/friend” group of the average person). And within that group, the possibility of someone dying of cancer in a five-year period is about 1-2, depending on a few factors such as the age of the group in question.

My personal experience does not seem to jibe with this, but I guess it is close. But since Covid, or more succinctly since the vaccine, that number has increased quite a bit. It is difficult for me to assess this accurately since I tend to lump all the suspected cancer deaths I hear of in one pile (and I hear of them from clients as well).

I also seem to be experiencing a low number of “inner circle” cancer deaths compared to other people, who have experienced MANY, some as many as 10 or so! So, how does this jibe with the 1-2 cases found within an average friend/family group of 250?

Another interesting statistic is that the 2023 report by Correlation Research in the Public Interest, led by Denis Rancourt, claims that the vaccine has caused more than 17 million deaths worldwide. If this is true, does this number include these suspected vaccine related cancer deaths? There are many reasons why this is not a wise assumption.

The average number of cancer deaths a year globally is roughly 10 million, and it increases slightly every year. If these excess cancer deaths we hear of (anything over 1-2 within the average friend/inner circle group) are attributed to the vaccine, we would have to add about 43 million to that 17 million number already mentioned. And since the official data shows no gargantuan cancer death increase since the vaccine made its debut in late 2020, this seems a bit implausible. Or is it?

The oncologists and other doctors, who note the increase of turbo cancers and attribute the increase to the vaccine, have explanations for this discrepancy, which include the agenda’s effort to block this information from official statistics. Oh, my, they wouldn’t do that, would they? So the actual deaths caused by the vaccine could be well over 17 million. If we include at least half of the cancer deaths we find “out of the ordinary” with the deaths now suspected to be caused by the vaccine, the final vaccine caused deaths would at least double. 37 plus million.

So, what is the forbidden question? Obviously, it is, “Were they vaxxed?” when we hear of an unusual cancer death or diagnosis. We typically do not ask that question for obvious reasons, one of them being that we already know the answer."

- https://off-guardian.org/

Todd Hayen PhD is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.

God help you if you've taken this shot...

o

"Sars-Cov2 Origins – 

“Gain of Function” or “Claim of Function”?

Dan, I Allegedly, "Big Brother Is Watching Us All - AI's Dark Side"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/17/25

"Big Brother Is Watching Us All - AI's Dark Side"

"AI is everywhere, and it’s changing our world - but is it for the better? In this video, I dive into how AI is becoming a tool for Big Brother, with government deals involving OpenAI and Anthropic, the rapid rise of AI use in public sectors, and how it's creeping into our everyday lives in ways you might not even notice. From license plate readers and automated tickets to how AI is affecting jobs and industries like construction and retail, it’s clear that AI isn't just about convenience - it’s about control. And what about the chaos in our cities? Ghost town malls, rising theft, and even drone deliveries are all part of the conversation. Speaking of ghost towns, I’m filming from a dying mall that’s a perfect backdrop for discussing these shifts. Trust me, it’s wild to see how these once-bustling spaces are now deserted. Plus, I touch on crazy stories like million-dollar smash-and-grabs and how AI is being used to track and monitor us more than ever. It’s a wake-up call for all of us."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"These Chinese Megaprojects Prove America Is 100 Years Behind"

"These Chinese Megaprojects Prove 

America Is 100 Years Behind"
by Luxury Zone

"These are the Chinese megaprojects that prove America is 100 years behind. While American politicians debate infrastructure bills for decades, China completed this project in just five years- and it’s so advanced that Western engineers are still trying to understand how they did it. The technology involved doesn’t just surpass anything America has built - it makes American infrastructure look like it belongs in a museum. The project’s completion sent shockwaves through Western governments and engineering firms who realized they weren’t just behind - they were competing in an entirely different league. European executives flew to China just to witness what their countries could never accomplish, while American officials quietly began reassessing their own infrastructure capabilities. But to understand how one project could expose a century-long technological gap, we need to explore the Chinese megaprojects that shocked the West. Starting with the transportation system that moves more people than entire countries."

Comments here: 

- https://www.youtube.com/

OMG...

Jeremiah Babe, "Escaping Economic Doomsday And Living On A Ranch"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 8/16/25

"Escaping Economic Doomsday And Living On A Ranch"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

Deuter, "Endless Horizon"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies. The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy.

Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as a large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426, is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million light-years.”

-http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110712.html

"It Is Inevitable..."

“We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and, if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching.

Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.”

- Blaise Pascal

Chet Raymo, “At Home In An Infinite Universe”

“At Home In An Infinite Universe”

by Chet Raymo

“They are questions that bedeviled thinkers for thousands of years: Is the universe infinite or finite, eternal or of a finite age? It is certainly hard to imagine a universe that extends without limit in every direction, or a universe without a beginning or end. It is equally difficult to imagine a finite universe; what is beyond the edge? Or a beginning or end in time; how can something come from nothing? How can what is cease to be?

The problems are so intractable philosophically that their resolution has generally been left to the theologians, which from a philosophical (or scientific) perspective offers no solution at all. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for proposing a philosophical resolution (an infinite universe) that offended theology.

An escape from befuddlement is provided by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which- for example- can describe a finite universe without a boundary, as the "two-dimensional" surface of a sphere is finite and without an edge. Unfortunately, multi-dimensional curved space-time is so counterintuitive that it is difficult to get one's head around it without mastery of the mathematics. Given a choice between the ancient myths of your local preacher and the obtuse mathematics of the physics professor, it's not hard to guess what most folks will opt for.

Meanwhile, I'm reading a meditation on infinity by physics professor Anthony Aguirre, in a collection of essays called "Future Science." He discusses contemporary cosmological theories based on general relativity, and in particular the rehabilitation of the idea of an infinite and eternal universe, or, more precisely, that our universe might be just one of an infinity of infinite universes. He writes in conclusion: “What seems clear, however, is that infinity can no longer be safely ignored; beautifully constructed, empirically supported, self-consistent theories have brought infinity from idle curiosity to central player in contemporary cosmology. And if correct, the worldview these theories represent constitutes a perspective shift unlike any other: in comparison to the universe, we would be not just small but strictly zero. Well, I can't imagine many folks racing to embrace that conclusion.

Oh, but wait. Aguirre adds one final sentence: "Yet here we are, contemplating - if not quite understanding - it all.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

The Poet: Mark Jarman, "Coyotes"

"Coyotes"

"Is this world truly fallen? They say no.

For there's the new moon, there's the Milky Way,

There's the rattler with a wren's egg in its mouth,

And there's the panting rabbit they will eat.

They sing their wild hymn on the dark slope,

Reading the stars like notes of hilarious music.

Is this a fallen world? How could it be?

And yet we're crying over the stars again,

And over the uncertainty of death,

Which we suspect will divide us all forever.

I'm tired of those who broadcast their certainties,

Constantly on their cell phones to their redeemer.

Is this a fallen world? For them it is.

But there's that starlit burst of animal laughter.

The day has sent its fires scattering.

The night has risen from its burning bed.

Our tears are proof that love is meant for life

And for the living. And this chorus of praise,

Which the pet dogs of the neighborhood are answering

Nostalgically, invites our answer, too.

Is this a fallen world? How could it be?"

~ Mark Jarman

The Daily "Near You?"

San Antonio, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Time, Life, And The Roller Coaster..."

"Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it. When the doctor slaps your behind, he's ripping your ticket and away you go. As you make each passage from youth to adulthood to maturity, sometimes you put your arms up and scream, sometimes you just hang on to that bar in front of you. But the ride is the thing. I think the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up."

- Jerry Seinfeld

○

Remember when you were 10 years old, and summer felt like it lasted forever? Got a little older, not so bad, still plenty of time to do everything you wanted. Someone told me back then that time speeds up the older you get. Being young, and knowing everything as the young do, I of course ridiculed this idea. But guess what - it’s true. Now I view life, and time, as a roller coaster with just one enormous riser. Time is slower to pass at the beginning as you climb towards the top.  At 30 or so you’re at the very top, then you start the fall towards the bottom. Faster and faster you go, as time goes by ever quicker. Weeks and months flash by, and you wonder where it all went, and as you descend ever faster you suddenly realize that somewhere on the tracks below there’s a solid brick wall or some other disaster awaiting your arrival. The only things you don’t know is where on the tracks ahead of you it is, or how soon you'll arrive. So, while you still can, you'd better appreciate even more the things you can enjoy, and the people whom you love and that love you, because the ride isn’t going to last forever... - CP

Of course, sometimes Life feels like this...

"Fast Time and the Aging Mind"

"Fast Time and the Aging Mind"
By Richard A. Friedman

"Ah, the languorous days of endless summer! Who among us doesn’t remember those days and wonder wistfully where they’ve gone? Why does time seem to speed up as we age? Even the summer solstice — the longest, sunniest day of the year — seems to have passed in a flash. No less than the great William James opined on the matter, thinking that the apparent speed of time’s passage was a result of adults’ experiencing fewer memorable events: “Each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse.”

Don’t despair. I am happy to tell you that the apparent velocity of time is a big fat cognitive illusion and happy to say there may be a way to slow the velocity of our later lives.

Although the sense that we perceive time as accelerating as we age is very common, it is hard to prove experimentally. In one of the largest studies to date, Dr. Marc Wittmann of the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, in Germany, interviewed 499 German and Austrian subjects ranging in age from 14 to 94 years; he asked each subject how quickly time seemed to pass during the previous week, month, year and decade. Surprisingly, there were few differences related to age. With one exception: when researchers asked the subjects about the 10-year interval, older subjects were far more likely than the younger subjects to report that the last decade had passed quickly.

Other, non-age-related factors influence our perception of time. Recent research shows that emotions affect our perception of time. For example, Dr. Sylvie Droit-Volet, a psychology professor at Blaise Pascal University, in France, manipulated subjects’ emotional state by showing them movies that excited fear or sadness and then asked them to estimate the duration of the visual stimulus. She found that time appears to pass more slowly when we are afraid.

Attention and memory play a part in our perception of time. To accurately gauge the passage of time required to accomplish a given task, you have to be able to focus and remember a sequence of information. That’s partly why someone with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder has trouble judging time intervals and grows impatient with what seems like the slow passage of time. The neurotransmitter dopamine is critically important to our ability to process time. Stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall, which increase dopamine function in the brain, have the effect of speeding up time perception; antipsychotic drugs, which block dopamine receptors, have the opposite effect.

On the whole, most of us perceive short intervals of time similarly, regardless of age. Why, then, do older people look back at long stretches of their lives and feel it’s a race to the finish? Here’s a possible answer: think about what it’s like when you learn something for the first time — for example how, when you are young, you learn to ride a bike or navigate your way home from school. It takes time to learn new tasks and to encode them in your memory. And when you are learning about the world for the first time, you are forming a fairly steady stream of new memories of events, places and people.

When, as an adult, you look back at your childhood experiences, they appear to unfold in slow motion probably because the sheer number of them gives you the impression that they must have taken forever to acquire. So when you recall the summer vacation when you first learned to swim or row a boat, it feels endless. But this is merely an illusion, the way adults understand the past when they look through the telescope of lost time. This, though, is not an illusion: almost all of us faced far steeper learning curves when we were young. Most adults do not explore and learn about the world the way they did when they were young; adult life lacks the constant discovery and endless novelty of childhood.

Studies have shown that the greater the cognitive demands of a task, the longer its duration is perceived to be. Dr. David Eagleman at Baylor College of Medicine found that repeated stimuli appear briefer in duration than novel stimuli of equal duration. Is it possible that learning new things might slow down our internal sense of time?

The question and the possibility it presents put me in mind of my father, who died a few years ago at age 86. An engineer by training, he read constantly after he retired. His range was enormous; he read about everything from astronomy to natural history, travel and gardening. I remember once discovering dozens of magazines and journals in the house and was convinced that my parents had become the victims of a mail-order scam. Thinking I’d help with the clutter, I began to bundle up the magazines for recycling when my father angrily confronted me, demanding to know what the hell I was doing. “I read all of these,” he said.

And then it dawned on me. I cannot recall his ever having remarked on how fast or slow his life seemed to be going. He was constantly learning, always alive to new ideas and experience. Maybe that’s why he never seemed to notice that time was passing.

So what, you might say, if we have an illusion about time speeding up? But it matters, I think, because the distortion signals that we might squeeze more out of life.

It’s simple: if you want time to slow down, become a student again. Learn something that requires sustained effort; do something novel. Put down the thriller when you’re sitting on the beach and break out a book on evolutionary theory or Spanish for beginners or a how-to book on something you’ve always wanted to do. Take a new route to work; vacation at an unknown spot. And take your sweet time about it."

- http://www.nytimes.com/

•

Richard A. Friedman is a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of the psycho-pharmacology clinic at the Weill Cornell Medical College.

"Clinging To The Core When Our World Falls Apart"

"Clinging To The Core When Our World Falls Apart"

by The DailyOm

"When external factors shift we have an opportunity to rediscover our core which is the only truly safe place to call home. There are times when our whole world seems to be falling apart around us, and we are not sure what to hold onto anymore. Sometimes our relationships crumble and sometimes it’s our physical environment. At other times, we can’t put our finger on it, but we feel as if all the walls have fallen down around us and we are standing with nothing to lean on, exposed and vulnerable. These are the times in our lives when we are given an opportunity to see where we have established our sense of identity, safety, and well-being. And while it is perfectly natural and part of our process to locate our sense of self in externals, any time those external factors shift, we have an opportunity to rediscover and move closer to our core, which is the only truly safe place to call home.

The core of our being is not affected by the shifting winds of circumstance or subject to the cycles of change that govern physical reality. It is as steady and consistent as the sun, which is why the great mystics and mystical poets often reference the sun in their odes to the self. Like the sun, there are times when our core seems to be inaccessible to us, but this is just a misperception. We know that when the sun goes behind a cloud or sets for the night, it has not disappeared but is simply temporarily out of sight. In the same way, we can trust that our inner core is always shining brightly, even when we cannot quite see it.

We can cling to this core when things around us are falling apart, knowing that an inexhaustible light shines from within ourselves. Times of external darkness can be a great gift in that they provide an opportunity to remember this inner light that shines regardless of the circumstances of our lives. When our external lives begin to come back together, we are able to lean a bit more lightly on the structures we used to call home, knowing more clearly than ever that our true home is that bright sun shining in our core."

- http://www.dailyom.com/

"Decide..."

“We're all going to die. We don't get much say over how or when, but we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More Compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”

- “Richard”, “Grey’s Anatomy”

"The Truth We Can’t Accept"

"The Truth We Can’t Accept"

by Paul Rosenberg

"There is a simple fact that people are unable to ingest. You can explain it with charts, graphs and documentation… and they may even like the sound of it… but it soon fades and is forgotten. This truth is simply too foreign to us; it doesn’t fit within our mental universe. Most of us don’t particularly fight it, but we’re very slow to integrate it. So please bear in mind that this may affect you too.

This truth is massively good news, by the way, which is strange too: Bad news people believe instantly; good news they doubt instantly. All that said, here’s the news: Scarcity upon Earth has been fundamentally overcome. We’ve been growing more food than we can eat for decades now, and we could grow much more if we needed to. Building houses for everyone would be no problem: we have the entire set of technologies and processes worked out, materials are available and there’s no lack of people who’d be glad to work as a homebuilder.

Likewise providing quality medical care to all is well within our reach, and of course cars and roads are no problem. So, before I get to support and objections, I’ll restate our main point: The doors to a golden age have swung open before us, but we’re having a hard time accepting that it’s real.

But Why Can’t We Believe It? Before I get to the details of our disbelief, let me tell you were you can find all the documentation you’d like:The work of Julian Simon, especially "The Ultimate Resource and The State of Humanity." You’ll find lots of hard data in these.The work of Stephen Moore and Johan Nordberg, particularly "It’s Getting Better All The Time and Progress."

And just to support this a bit, here’s part of a presentation from Norman Borlaug, the man who revolutionized modern agriculture (Nobel Prize, etc.) and saved a billion lives in the process. It was delivered in in September of 2000: "I now say that the world has the technology – either available or well advanced in the research pipeline – to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people." You’ll find similar passages in the resources noted above. So, from a scientific standpoint, our main points are very solid, and on the production side, scarcity was overcome some decades ago. Why then is this non-believable?

First of all, we’ve been raised to believe in regimentation; to see it as the path to paradise and to treat it as a sublime invention. But regimentation is entirely focused on the bad: We believe that by suppressing evil we create a better world for ourselves. And so, anything that smells of a present golden age – a good age – is incompatible with our beloved regimentation. That means that our deep assumptions would have to be revised, and that’s uncomfortable. Beyond that sits the fact that scarcity is a psychological necessity to us. If we no longer need to fight over resources, how do we show ourselves superior?

Objections to this discussion tend to be indirect, dealing with things like “human desires are infinite.” These, however, are paper arguments: we’re discussing concrete things like food and houses. And, of course, there is a difference between wants and needs. Wants are bounded only by our imaginations, and so are unfit for a serious and this-worldly discourse. A comfortable home, good food and reliable transportation are needs. Ferraris, mansions and caviar are wants.

Likewise, arguments over finite resources are distractions: We have plenty of materials right now (including fuels for both fission and fusion). Additionally, there are planets and asteroid belts waiting for us in the not-too distant future. In actual fact there are fewer starving people all the time. Moreover, the cause of whatever starvation remains is almost wholly political, not technological.

So…What we need is to talk about these things: To review the sources, examine the graphs and start working this into ourselves as an actual possibility. We really are ready to step into a golden age, as impossibly foreign as that may seem. In fact, we’ve been doing precisely that, mostly by accident, for decades. If we worked at it, we might go down in history as the generation that transformed humanity forever."

- https://freemansperspective.com/

While I'd love to be so optimistic, but considering all things the path Mankind is on,

 extinction is a more likely end. A "Golden Age?" Most unlikely, but food for thought...

Dan, I Allegedly, "The End of America is Here! Here's Proof"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, AM 8/16/25

"The End of America is Here! Here's Proof"

"America’s farming crisis is worse than you think, and it’s hitting us all where it hurts most - our wallets. In this video, I break down the shocking truth about why 140,000 U.S. farms have disappeared in the past decade and how this is driving food prices through the roof. From small family farms being sold off to developers to the struggles of cattle ranchers, this is a wake-up call for all of us. Support your local farmers - whether it's buying fresh produce, fruit, or even corn from a roadside stand - it makes a huge difference in keeping these communities alive. We also talk about inflation, housing costs, and the outrageous challenges of health insurance. Plus, I share a wild story about Beyond Meat and why the faux meat industry is crumbling."

Comments here:

-https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"U.S. National Debt In Real Time"

"What This Country Needs..."

"What this country needs... what this great land of ours needs is something to happen to it. Something ferocious and tragic, like what happened to Jericho or the cities of the plain - something terrible I mean, son, so that when the people have been through hellfire and the crucible, and have suffered agony enough and grief, they'll be people again, human beings, not a bunch of smug contented cows rooting at the trough."

- William Styron, "Set This House On Fire"

And what this country really needs is just beginning, watch and see...

God help us...

Joel Bowman, "State Capitalism"

"State Capitalism"

The government's big knowledge problem

 and Hayek's familiar road to serfdom...

by Joel Bowman

“The more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.”

~ Friedrich Hayek, from "The Road to Serfdom" (1944)

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "When we left you earlier this week, we were reckoning over a paradox... a contradiction in terms... a riddle wrapped in a mystery tucked inside an oxymoron. The malformed figure of speech: “State Capitalism.”

Like a fire-breathing Chimera, the phrase sprang forth from an article in The Wall Street Journal: "The U.S. Marches Toward State Capitalism With American Characteristics." The article went on to detail how the United States Government, under the stewardship of Donald Trump II, has come to engage more and more directly in not only the broader economy, through tariffs, taxes and the like, but individual companies therein...from pressuring Intel to fire its CEO (and later backtracking after a private meeting in the Oval Office)... to the government carving out a “Golden Share” in US Steel as part of a takeover by Japan’s largest steelmaker, Nippon Steel Corp... to arranging for the state to take a cut of Nvidia and AMD’s chip sales to China...to issuing an Executive Order to establish a U.S. sovereign wealth fund (SWF), similar to those operated by petro-welfare states like Norway, the UAE and Kuwait. And plenty more besides...

Inquiring minds were set to wonder, “If it doesn’t look like capitalism, and it doesn’t smell like capitalism, and it doesn’t quack like capitalism...”

Command Economics: As we noted at the time, this is by no means the first time the federal government has presumed to know the inner workings of the market better than the hundreds of millions of individuals actually participating in it. Indeed, most of the 20th Century was spent wasting other people's money on one whacky, centrally-planned idea after another, usually under the guise of emergencies brought about by The State itself.

Continued the Journal..."The federal government has often waded into the corporate world. It commandeered production during World War II and, under the Defense Production Act, emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic. It bailed out banks and car companies during the 2007-09 financial crisis. Those, however, were temporary expedients.

Former President Joe Biden went further, seeking to shape the actual structure of industry. His Inflation Reduction Act authorized $400 billion in clean-energy loans. The Chips and Science Act earmarked $39 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Of that, $8.5 billion went to Intel, giving Trump leverage to demand the removal of its CEO over past ties to China. (Intel so far has refused.)

Biden overrode U.S. Steel’s management and shareholders to block Nippon Steel’s takeover, though his staff saw no national-security risk. Trump reversed that veto while extracting the “golden share” that he can use to influence the company’s decisions. In design and name it mimics the golden shares that private Chinese companies must issue to the CCP.

Biden officials had mulled a sovereign-wealth fund to finance strategically important but commercially risky projects such as in critical minerals, which China dominates. Last month, Trump’s Department of Defense said it would take a 15% stake in MP Materials, a miner of critical minerals."

Doomed to Fail: One of the main problems with “State Capitalism” is functional. That is to say, it doesn’t work. The reasons for this are manifold, the primary one being what Friedrich Hayek called the “Knowledge Problem.” Hayek demonstrated that, in the real world, information is not concentrated, but rather dispersed among myriad individuals, thereby making it impossible for central planners to possess the specific knowledge needed to manage an economy from the top down.

The market, on the other hand, relies on signals from the aforementioned participants, each pursuing his own ends, thereby creating what Hayek termed Spontaneous Order; a system where vital information – price... time... supply... demand... quantity... quality... velocity... momentum... trend... etc. – is conveyed and interpreted in a way that no central politburo could ever hope to master. (Little surprise, then, that whenever the state does intervene in otherwise free markets, it creates such a predictable tsunami of unintended consequences... a Note for another time.)

The other problem with “State Capitalism” is definitional... as in, it doesn’t exist. That is to say, there is no such thing as “State Capitalism.” To understand this, we have to engage our old friend, Semantics.

What’s In A Word: To the chagrin of big state apologists on the left AND on the right, capitalism isn’t “the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer.” Nor is it “profits over people” or “greed is good” or any of the other mealy-mouthed misdirections and empty sloganeering employed by meddlers and do-gooders advocating for more public disservice and state intervention. Neither is capitalism some nebulous, esoteric concept... vague enough to find a place in a sophomore gender studies essay... subjective enough to carry no objective meaning at all. It is, quite simply, an economic system in which:

Private individuals own and control the means of production and prices are set by the free market (i.e., through voluntary exchange; absent coercion). That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Or, to put it in the memetic language of marketing copy: “For every free and voluntary exchange of privately owned goods and services, there’s Capitalism. For everything else, there’s The State.”

Like the “living dead” or an “original copy” or an “honest politician,” the very term “state capitalism” is, itself, an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Likewise, there is no “hybrid” between socialism and capitalism, any more than there is a hybrid between being free and being incarcerated; either you can leave... or you cannot. Which brings us to capitalism’s opposing force: The State.

Equal and Opposite: In his famous 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation, the German sociologist and political philosopher, Max Weber, defined The State as: “A human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Debates over the “legitimate” use of force aside, we can see here that The State cannot, by definition, act as a participant in something that relies on voluntarism as a core operating principle.

The very moment The State enters the economy in any way, shape or form – to tax one group and subsidize another... to set the price of a single good or service... to impose itself on a single contract... to claim a monopoly on the production of money, to demand its fiat be used, and that others be prohibited... to require a license, permit or other permission... to put its flabby finger on a single scale... – is to simultaneously render property contingent and the market subject to force. Where Capitalism ends, The State begins... and never the twain shall meet.

But where does that leave us, dear reader? Why, right here of course… at the end of today’s word count. Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

"Coffee In Texas; Trump No Deal Until There's A Deal; AI Taking Over The World""

Jeremiah Babe, AM 8/16/25

"Coffee In Texas; Trump No Deal Until There's A Deal; 

AI Taking Over The World"

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